


can't stay in the shallows (tell me i won't wash away)

by disinclinant (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Surfers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Captivity, F/M, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Consensual Bonds, Reader-Insert, Selkies, Slow Build, Tenderness, extremely self-indulgent nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-09-30 11:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/disinclinant
Summary: You've always been curious about the mortal world. You enjoy studying the humans, entranced by their ways and their world, their technology and their stories, and most especially all the ways they have learned to love your home, treacherous though it is for those without flippers or fur or inherent guard against the water and cold and the deeps.Especially the surfers. You like the boards they build and decorate, you like their wildness and discipline, their sure, steady strokes, the way their eyes blaze when the ocean is wild and the waves mountainous, as if they hear the song of the water the same way you do, and meet it with the same joyful abandon.Chris is your favourite, gentle and strong and self-assured, one with the water and patient as the tide. And when your skin is stolen, your voice silenced, a void in the depths of you threatening to swallow you whole, it's Chris you run to the first chance you get, Chris who gives you hope and shelter from the storm your life's become.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacelabrathor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacelabrathor/gifts).

> so i saw [this photo of chris](https://spacelabrathor.tumblr.com/post/187316201594/chris-hemsworth-for-swisse-the-quest-continues) and after inhaling [@spacelabrathor's](http://spacelabrathor.tumblr.com) chris/thor loving content for WEEKS i just HAD to write this. enjoy! tell me your thoughts! follow spacelabrathor here and on tumblr!!!
> 
> anywho, heed the tags, nothing is explicit or excessively graphic, and nothing bad happens with chris! also, i wrote this in twelve hours and its 80% complete but i was gonna go crazy if i didn't post what i have of it so far. 
> 
> title is from 'deep water' by american authors, which is thematically relevant :D

You've always been curious about the human world, and for the most part, your pod has not been discouraging of this. It's a right of passage for those of you who come of age, to explore land as well as sea, to learn of the other half of your heritage. It's less dangerous these days; fewer mortals believe in your kind, and many look on fur or pelt with judgement.

You're never careless, of course. The danger is still there, lessened though it may be. When you do venture on land and shed your skin, it's usually during the cold months, when you will garner no strange looks for keeping it close.

Humans, for the most part, are not unlike your kind. Kind or mean, intelligent or stupid, clever and funny and ignorant and rude and polite and generous and selfish, all in equal measure. You enjoy studying them, entranced by their ways and their world, their technology and their stories, and most especially all the ways they have learned to love your home, treacherous though it is for those without flippers or fur or inherent guard against the water and cold and the deeps. 

Some days you watch the divers, those funny humans who have created their own skin they shed like yours, only it's for going into the water, not leaving it. Other days you watch the surfers, who are your favourites. You like the boards they build and decorate, you like their wildness and discipline, their sure, steady strokes, the way their eyes blaze when the ocean is wild and the waves mountainous, as if they hear the song of the water the same way you do, and meet it with the same joyful abandon.

There is one among them that you watch more often than the others, one who stays when others leave for their homes at the end of their vacations, one who braves the cold as though he doesn't feel it. The first time you saw him you were in your seal skin and he was on his board, and the water was quiet and cradling. He wasn't doing anything, just sitting there, balanced on his board as though it were an extension of him. You'd swum beneath him curiously before you darted your head above the waterline to study him. He hadn't noticed you—or he had but had wanted to give you respectful distance. 

You had not done the same, swimming nearer as he stared into the distance, at the near imperceptible line where sea met horizon, pearly grey as the insides of clams. 

Even now you remember with the clarity of lightning shearing the sky what he looked like, the memory sharp in your mind. The slope of his wide shoulders, the broad sweep of his back, the strength of his arms and legs, the strong cut of his jaw. A large man, solid as stone but one with the water, as though it flowed in him and through him. 

You ducked beneath him and reemerged before him, blatant and unafraid, and he had looked at you then, eyes bright and...kind. And then he had smiled, and the kingly sternness had fallen away, his face transformed by it, all gentleness and good cheer, lit golden by the sun. 

"Hello," he had said, and you'd been so flustered that you'd rolled and dived and swam away. When you had resurfaced, some yards away, he had still been there, but his head had been turned unerringly your way, as though he had followed your progress. He had lifted a large hand your way in a wave, and you had never felt so _seen_ in all your life. 

. 

. 

. 

His name is Chris and he lives on the beach, in a sprawling bungalow screened by all manner of bushes and trees and plants, a lawn of wild sea grass and sand dunes that leads to a section of the beach all to himself and a wooden jetty, because he owns a _boat_. 

You've watched him for weeks now, always in your seal skin. 

(Only once have you dared to lounge on his strip of beach, when he wasn't home, and you'd lazed there on the surf for so long that he had come home, startling you from your nap with the rumble of his jeep moments before it had cut off and he'd come around the corner with his board under his arm, wetsuit pushed half off and hanging indecently low around his waist. You'd been frozen, watching him as he'd propped his board outside his door and disappeared inside. Only when he was out of sight had you slipped into the water).

Chris is a surf instructor, teaching the locals and tourists alike with good cheer and patience and a sort of subdued intensity that speaks to how seriously he takes the craft and the safety of his students, no matter how obnoxious or nervous or shrill they are. You're not a patient person yourself, so you admire him for it more than you might have otherwise. You find him teaching by accident while wandering along the beach. It's the tail end of summer, and your skin is wrapped around your waist the way others wear their hoodies. 

You don't normally do this—not when the weather is still warm and your skin might attract unwarranted attention. But you're so curious about him, entranced by him. Your siblings tease you but leave you be. It's in your natures, after all, to fixate on humans. You've just found your person, they say, with barking laughs. You tell them they're jumping to conclusions, that you might _like_ what you've seen of him but certainly aren't about to approach him directly. 

You watch him teach from a distance. Sometimes you bring a book or magazine along from your cache of human things you've hidden in a secluded grotto inside a waterproof bag , but you spend more time reading _him_ than you do the materials. 

He notices, but he never does more than smile your way and occasionally wave, focused as he is on his job. Eventually you become comfortable enough to wave back and smile, and his eyes always crinkle a little deeper when you do. It makes warmth bloom in your chest. 

You should talk to him. You _could_ talk to him. You're just afraid to. You've never made friends with a mortal, because questions are inevitable, and your skin is not _invisible_. 

(You know of others of your kind who hide their skin when they come on land, but anxiety thrills through you at the thought. What if, one day, you come back to your hiding place and find it empty? So few know of selkies anymore, they would have no idea of the power in their hands, thinking only to have found an old hunter's treasure. They could cut it up or burn it or give it away, and you would be trapped, forever parted from the sea and your kind, always searching for a way home).

(Even worse, what if your skin was found and taken by someone who knew exactly what it was they held?)

So you don't talk to him, even though you yearn to, mired in your fears. And then one day, after waving off the last of his students, he ambles over to you. You scramble to your feet, suddenly nervous, fingers tight around your skin as your heart thumps against your ribcage. 

His smile is gentle, and he stops a few feet away, hands in the pockets of his board shorts. 

"Hey," he says, "Sorry, I've just noticed you hanging around, thought it was about time I said hello." 

You blink at him, voice locked in your throat. 

He ducks his head, scratches at his chin, all his self-assurance seeming to have fled, displaying a shyness you've never before seen from him or thought him capable of. "I uh, I just thought...you always watch them surf. Thought maybe you wanted lessons?" 

This is such an unexpected observation that it spurs you into speech. "Oh!" you say, "No, thank you, I just—" You fumble into silence, mortified. You should've taken the excuse he'd offered, rather than admit to having essentially been stalking him. "I just like to watch," you whisper, toes curling into the sand. 

He laughs, a surprised huff of air, looks at you with his bright eyes. "OK," he says easily, grinning. "That's alright too. But if you ever wanted to learn, I could teach you. I'm Chris, by the way." So saying, he extends a hand towards you, and you take it, marvelling at how large it is around yours, warm and calloused and gently squeezing before he releases you, and you almost wish he’d held on just a little longer. 

You tell him your name, a name you chose for yourself when you first shed your seal skin, because your true name is a series of chirps and whistles humans would find difficult to get right. 

"Nice to meet you, officially," Chris says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I uh, I gotta go, but. Offer stands, yeah? If you change your mind, just let me know." 

"I will," you tell him, and are surprised to find that you mean it. You watch him leave, watch him shoot you a grin from the window of his jeep before he drives off, and you imagine it, sitting on a board with him across from you, teaching you to balance with your human limbs, all his focus on you. 

You're so caught up in your thoughts, as you head to the place you leave your human things, that you fail to notice the man following you, not until you've stripped out of your clothes. 

His hands land on your skin, folded carefully to the side and waiting, and you whirl, ice flooding through your chest. He looks down at your skin and then up at you, dark-eyed and sharklike and just as threatening. Every touch of his fingers against your skin has you shuddering. 

"I knew you were real," he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also feel free to follow me/yell (kindly) at me on tumblr [@disinclinant](http://disinclinant.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

He hides it, of course he does. He hides it and take you to his home, deeper on land, just barely in sight of the water. The man tells you his name and you swear to never use it, hateful and terrified and despairing. He doesn’t ask you yours. He doesn’t care. He just wants you, like any man would who _does_ this, who takes someone’s skin and keeps it for his own, a thief and a murderer. 

_That is what he has done,_ you want to howl. He has killed you, who you were and who you are, trapped you and stifled you and touched you without permission or respect or gentleness, as though you are a _thing_. 

_Murderer, murderer, murderer._

But you do not howl. You do not speak a word. You swallow it down and let it rage within you like a storm in a bottle. You will not give him the satisfaction. You will be cold as the ice of your grandmother’s home, fathomless and desolate. 

It’s a hollow rebellion. He doesn’t _care_. He makes you his, and you tend his home and his needs, and he warns you that any misbehaviour on your part will lead to the permanent destruction of your skin. He will never let you go, but the possibility of finding your skin is the only thing that keeps you from clawing his eyes out, from running away, from flinging yourself into the water and letting yourself drown rather than remain here, with _him_. 

Whenever he goes to work you dig through his home, from basement to attic and everywhere in between, careful to return everything to the way it was before, but you do not find it. He seems to know you search, because sometimes he laughs at you, whispers against your skin that you will never find it, that you are his forever.

You hate him. You have never hated anybody or anything before, and the depths of your hate astounds you sometimes. It is a darkness, a void in the centre of you from which no tears will come. You have not cried since he touched your skin, and you will never cry for him, or because of him, or by him, not when he drinks too much and hits you, not when he hurts you in the dark in his bed, not when he abandons you for days on end in the cage of his house, only the phantom touch of his on your lost skin reminding you of the truth of your entrapment.

It is during one of these periods of absence that you venture outside. You don’t go far. You wander his yard, front and back, looking for freshly turned earth where he may have buried your skin, clumsily climbing the big tree in the back to see if it is draped on a branch or tucked into a hollow, but you don’t find it. When he finally comes back, you have scrubbed the dirt out from beneath your fingernails and the lines of the soles of your feet, but he still _knows_.

“Are you bored?” he asks, as though it matters, as though it bothers him. “Do you feel cooped up, being here?”

It’s a trick question, and you don’t know what answer he wants, and besides, you still refuse to speak to him. He touches your cheek, the line of your throat, thumbs at a bruise there and watches you flinch dispassionately.

“Let’s go out, hm?” he murmurs, “We’ll have a beach day. If you’re good. You’ll be a good girl, right?”

The hope of salt and sand and near-freedom sets you yearning and despairing and revolted all at once. He wants you to _pretend_. He wants you to seem happy, he wants you to welcome him, he wants you to _want_ him, even as he relishes the power he has over you. He wants to make you complicit in your own incarceration. And because you want it so badly, to be back within sight of home, you _do_, and some of your hate for him is turned against yourself, like an oil spill contaminating everything it comes into contact with.

You please him. Somehow, you do, and he follows through on his promise six weeks to the day he took your skin. He escorts you into his car and you drive for thirty-two minutes—you know, because you are tracking the time, the turns and the streets, carefully and subtly, in case he notices. He doesn’t. He hums along to the radio, the fingers of one hand tapping against the steering wheel, other hand tight and proprietary around your thigh. And all the time, the smell of brine on the air gets sharper, and the glimmer of water on the horizon grows and grows, like arms spreading wide to welcome you.

When he parks and you step out, you take a deep breath, eyes drifting shut, and pretend just for a moment that you are here of your own volition. The slinging of your captor's arm around your shoulders shatters the illusion.

You walk along the boardwalk at the pace he determines, stopping when he wants to for lunch, chatting with his friends and the people he knows. He never introduces you and you refuse to look anyone in the eye, refuse to seem anything but aloofly miserable. No one seems to notice anyway, and your hate grows. 

You want to go home. You want to go _home_.

You stare out at the ocean, empty as it is, searching vainly for any site of your pod. It is nearly winter, and no one but a few brave souls are swimming or surfing. In the distance are a few boats, white sails against the soft blush of the sunset sky. Even the beach is sparsely occupied, mostly by locals picnicking or strolling or walking their dogs or swinging in hammocks faded by sun and salt to pale peach and near-translucent green. 

He notices where your attention is, of course.

“Go ahead,” he says, with an air of indulgent magnanimity. “I’m going for a drink. Come back in a couple of hours. You have the watch I gave you?”

Stunned, you lift your wrist to display it, and he nods, smiles, kisses you hard.

“You’ll come back,” he says, “You know better than not to.”

You want to bite him. You don’t. You just nod. He nudges you towards the sand, and you go without a backwards look.

Your first step into the lap of the water has tears springing suddenly to your eyes, a sob welling in your chest. The water is frigid but welcome, swirling around your ankles like a curious child, begging you to play. You can’t, and you swallow the swell of emotion, push it down, down, down, letting it sink like a stone, even though it makes you feel like you're suffocating. 

You stand there for a long time, until your legs tire and your feet are buried, and then you sit, heedless of your clothes—they’re not _your_ clothes, after all. They’re _his_, and if it wouldn't infuriate him you’d tear them to nothing, burn them, bin them. So you sit, as the tide steadily rises, arms wrapped around your knees, the cold piercing you, until the push-pull of home is rocking you like a mother’s embrace. 

The call of your name startles you from the fog you’ve fallen into, and you jerk upright, afraid your time is up, afraid he has come to find you, that you’ve angered him. But it’s not him at all—it’s _Chris_. And of course it is. He’s the only human you’ve ever given your name to, bar a few baristas.

His customary greeting smile falls away as he takes in the sight of you. You know what you look like, pale and thin and miserable, and now soaked and so cold it hurts to shiver. His brows furrow, his stride quickening towards you.

“Hey,” he says, looming anxiously over you. “Hey, hey, are you—you must be _freezing_.” So saying he shrugs off his hoodie, drapes it around your shoulders. It’s huge on you, the hem brushing against your thighs, warm and smelling of Chris, something subtly spiced and musky and human.

“Th-thanks,” you stammer out through chattering teeth, your voice rough, and shove your trembling arms into the sleeves, curling your fingers into the extra fabric of the cuffs.

“Come on, outta the water, you need to get warm.” He gently ushers you up the beach, towards a bonfire. There are a few dotted along the beach, now that night is falling, but the others have groups of people around them, while this one is abandoned but for you two. A towel is laid out, and Chris sits you on it with a gentle press of his hands to your shoulders, pulling another out of a bag and laying it on your lap, so that you’re covered in his things, his smell, the warmth of his fire seeping into you with painful prickles that, after a while, subside into nothing but glorious heat. 

You sigh into it, lay your cheek on your knee tucked against your chest, watch as Chris carefully lays another log on the fire and then sits next to you, eyes flicking from you to the fire to the beach, and then back. 

“Haven’t see you around in a while,” he says, and then, “Thought I might’ve scared you away.”

You shake your head, look away, at the sparks flying into the dark sky as the log sputters and pops. For a while, the only sounds between you are the crackle-hiss of the fire and the _hush-hush_ of the tide and, distantly, the chatter and laughter of patrons on the boardwalk. 

“Is everything ok?” he asks, quietly, gently. 

You don’t say anything for a long time, just look his way to study how he’ll take your silence. Patiently, as it turns out. Not rushing you, not asking more questions, not even giving you the impression that he feels he’s owed an answer. 

“No,” you say, eventually, and the word cracks and tears and yawns open in the middle, ugly and dark. You squeeze your eyes shut, but not before you see his hand rise and hover between you. You wait for his touch, can’t decided if you want it or spurn it, something aching settling in you when it never lands.

“Anything I can do?” he asks. 

You shake your head, look at him again. “Thanks though,” you say, even as he frowns.

You leave a few minutes later, still damp but no longer quite as cold. You shake out the towels and lay them out to dry, and then slide his hoodie off and hand it to him. 

“Keep it,” he says.

“I can’t,” you say, and something in your voice stops him from arguing, though you can tell he wants to insist. He takes it, and your hands brush, and the ache in you builds. 

“If I could help,” he says, staring up at you. “If I could...” And he’s so earnest and good and true in that moment that all your aches bloom into something heavy in your chest, like the expansive rise of a wave come to sweep you away, leaving you trembling in the face of it. 

“I know,” you say, and risk laying your hand on his shoulder, just the once, just to feel him, to reassure him as best as you can, even though you both know it’s a false, cold comfort. 

.

.

.

You find _him_ where you left him. He smells like alcohol and the smoke of grilled meat. He frowns at you; you’re a few minutes late, you know. 

“Did you go swimming?” he asks, thumbing at your t-shirt. 

You nod.

“That seems pointless,” he says, cruelly, languidly. “It’s not like you have anywhere to go.” 

You hunch against his words.

After a beat, he adds, "If you get sick I’m not dealing with it.”


	3. Chapter 3

You do get sick, because of course you do. It’s the first time you’ve _ever_ been sick in human skin. When you start sniffling and sneezing and coughing, _he_ grimaces, snaps at you not to get your germs in his food, and tosses medicine your way. The syrup stuff tastes _vile_. You don’t take it after that first gulp, and he’s not paying attention, so within the day you’re running hot and shivering violently, the world gone all dizzy and over-bright, a pain lancing through your head in time with the noises coming from the TV.

It could be worse, because he leaves you alone, and you bury yourself in his bed and sweat and moan and hope you’re dying while he busies himself with _not_ _you_. You don’t know how long it lasts. Periodically he checks on you, poking his head into the room to see if you’re still alive and haven’t puked on his bed or in the room. But eventually he stops doing even that.

You think you hear the sound of the door closing, of his car starting, but you might be dreaming, because you keep seeing Chris staring down at you in worry, asking you if there’s anything he can do. The bed you’re holed up on is in the middle of the ocean and you’re going to sink, and your pod is calling for you from behind the swell of the waves, just out of sight, just out of reach. You stretch out an arm, croak out a call, and _fall_ with a heart-clenching jerk, only to land on hard wooden floors, tangled in blankets, desperately needing to pee.

You pass out in the bathtub with the taps on, warm and running over you, because it feels good. You come to to your captor yelling at you about his water bill and the mess in the bathroom. He drags you out with a bruising grip on your arms, your legs folding underneath you, weak and useless. He tosses you onto the couch, throws a blanket your way, and pours the medicine down your throat, leaving you sputtering and cringing and weakly trying to shove him away.

He slaps you hard across the face, making your ears ring and your vision shatter. “Stop being such a fucking baby,” he snarls.  
.  
.  
.  
When the fever breaks you're groggy and sore and smelly but alive. He’s gone, and you enjoy it, and shower away the lingering scent of illness from your skin. It’s in the middle of this shower, as your scrubbing at your body, that you feel the tell-tale touch of someone’s hands on your skin. You shiver, goosebumps prickling up your spine. This touch is different. Whenever _he_ touches your hidden skin it hurts, leaves you feeling nauseated and scoured. This touch is—gentle. Reverent. It leaves you feeling unsteady. You stumble getting out of the shower, and the touch vanishes.

When he comes home that day, his mouth is twisted and his eyes are flashing. “Did you go out today?”

You shake your head. All you did was shower and sip at some canned soup and tidy, too weak to do much more. You’d been napping when he walked in.

He stares darkly at you, and then shakes his head, snatches a bottle of beer from the fridge, throwing himself onto the couch and flipping on the tv. You hesitantly sit beside him, where he usually wants you, but he ignores you with a steadfastness that makes you feel like it’s supposed to be a punishment, a cloud over his head, a storm on the horizon that gets uglier with every passing minute, every drained bottle.

He’s meaner with you, that night. You have to fight hard against the tears threatening to spill down your face, until he finally turns over and falls asleep.

His mood worsens over the next few days. He finds fault with everything you do and don’t do, with the way you walk and the way you breathe. He drinks too much, walks around slamming doors and plates, agitated. He’s quicker to hit you but stops touching you for any other purpose. You’re torn between relief and bewildered fear. You don’t know what’s wrong, why he’s so angry, and nothing you do calms him.

And then suddenly, like a squall, his bad mood evaporates. He comes home from work…settled, sober, dismissive. He doesn’t criticize the food you made him, the way you cleaned, the way you dressed yourself or did your hair. He seems content, treats you like a pretty thing again, but with markedly less interest than he used to have for you.

You remain disconcerted and more wary than you were before, when he was raging.

That night, as he’s sleeping and as you’re wondering what the reason for his earlier mood was, what set him off and how to keep it from happening again, you feel another slow, languorous touch on your skin. It steals your breath. It’s only there for a moment, and then gone.

And you know. You _know_.

Your skin is in someone else’s hands.  
.  
.  
.  
Running away is easy. You don’t even wait. You ease out of the bed then and there, creep out of the room, through the house, and out the door. You pause there, straining your ears for signs that he’s woken, and then, with your heart pounding wildly in your chest, you _run_.

You remember the route to the beach. You ran over it in your mind again and again and again, until you began to dream you walked it. You run the whole way there, barefoot, breath heaving, run and run and _run_, heedless of the way your feet begin to bleed, the stabbing fire in your side, the way your lungs strain. You stumble, fall a handful of times, claw yourself back to your feet and hobble-jog on, desperate and determined, afraid the moment you stop is the moment he comes roaring at you.

He mustn’t catch you. You will never have a chance like this again.

And then there is sand under your feet. And then there’s the ocean, wide and glimmering in the moonlight. And then there is _freedom_.

You barrel right into the water, exultant and exhausted. The cold of it lances through you and you shriek and then laugh, harsh and mad as a seagull, and submerge yourself. You paddle and roll in the water, splashing wildly, heedless of potential predators or onlookers. You don’t care. You’re _free_.

Even if you don’t have your skin, even if someone else found it, has it, keeps it, you’re free.

You come out of the water eventually, feeling more alive, more yourself than you have in so _so_ long. You’re freezing and hurting, inside and out, but so ecstatically happy it warms you like a fire. With difficulty you get a hold of yourself. You can’t stay here, out in the open. You can’t go back to your grotto, because when _he_ looks for you—and he will look for you—he’ll go there first. You don’t have anywhere else to go except—except a place he doesn’t know.

You still don’t know Chris very well, but you do know one thing. He has never made you feel anything but safe around him, whether in your seal skin or out of it. You have spent years and years watching humans. You know people, and you trust your own judgement of them.

Chris is safe.

Resolute if limping, you start walking.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunrise is a wash of coral and lavender in the sky when you collapse at the door of Chris’ house, next to the board propped up beside it. You have never felt so tired before in your _life_, and the gritty wood beneath you could be the softest bed in the world and the surrounding embrace of your pod all at once for how comfortable you find it. You’re asleep before you know it, curled into yourself, back against the walls of Chris’ house, the promise of relief leading you into gentle dreams the moment your eyes close, despite the chill of the air. 

You wake slowly, disoriented, to a touch at your shoulder and a worried voice, the words blurring into nothing you can make sense of. You peel your eyes open, glimpse blonde hair and blue eyes.

_Chris_, your tired mind tells you, and you remember last night in a wash of memories that threaten to pull you under. He calls your name again, but this time you recognize it. You smile up at him, but it must come out wrong because the furrow between his brows just deepens.

_“Hi,”_ you say. Your lips and tongue feel clumsy, your words slurring a little. A sharp, bitterly cold wind nips at your face and hands and feet, and you curl up tighter, shivering, there on the floor. 

Chris’ mouth thins, and then he reaches out to you again, slow and careful, wraps an arm around your back and under your legs, lifts you with stunning ease. You’re so out of it you just mumble happily and curl into his warmth, twisting your numb fingers into the material of his shirt, tucking your face against the warm hollow between his throat and shoulder, his beard rasping pleasantly against your cheek. You’re aware of being moved, aware of sudden warmth and the click of a door, of being lowered gently onto—a couch, it turns out.

The interior of Chris’ house is all bright plants and soft fabrics, brightly coloured rugs and more pillows on the couch in various fabrics and patterns than any one person should need, the walls crowded with wide shelves of books and knick-knacks lined up under the lintel of the windows. You stare around in somewhat vacant appreciation, until Chris, kneeling before you, catches and holds your attention. He drags a big, soft blanket over your shoulders and tucks it around you. You shift at his touch, uneasy though you know you don’t need to be, and then hiss as your feet sting.

Chris glances quickly up at you, and then his hands drift down to your feet. He lifts them one by one, studying your soles with palpable disapproval, thumb swiping over the knob of your ankles somewhat absently.

“Stay here,” he says, setting your feet down carefully, and stands to disappear somewhere behind you. You can’t imagine ever moving again, and settle deeper into the couch, grabbing a fluffy black-and-white pillow to rub your fingers through. Sensation is returning to you in painful burning stabs, and as you warm, your brain wakes up.

What had seemed like a sensible, inevitable decision last night now seems a little like madness. How could you explain yourself to Chris? Your captor is out there somewhere, no doubt awake and enraged and searching for you, and you still have no idea where you skin has been hidden or who has hold of it. And now you’ve drawn Chris into your troubles.

You tell yourself it doesn’t matter, as Chris reappears. That this is better than being in his house. That you'll figure it out . 

Chris is holding a first aid kit, a hand towel, and a bowl of warm water. He sits at your feet, crosslegged, opens the kit, takes out alcohol wipes and tweezers. “You’ve got sand all over your feet,” he says, lifting them into the bowl and gentle rubbing the sand off of them. It's the kindest touch you’ve felt in so long that you don’t even mind the way the open cuts on your feet burn. 

Once they’re both cleaned he pats them dry with a towel. "This is gonna hurt a little,” he adds apologetically, lifting your right foot to his lap. “But I don’t want you to get an infection."

“’S ok,” you say, even as you flinch at the first burning if tentative swipe of the wipes against your feet. He’s very careful, moves slowly and methodically, doesn’t reprimand you for flinching or even tighten his grip on you, lets you jerk your foot out of his grasp and then holds you again when it doesn’t sting as much. He pulls tiny bits of gravel and other debris from the underside, massages some kind of cooling ointment over them, and then props your feet up on an ottoman he drags nearer.

“Holding up ok?” he asks you. “Still cold?”

“I’m good,” you say, pulling the blanket tighter around you. You are, you’re just nervous now, bracing yourself for the questions he must have, trying to figure out how to answer them, what to say, how much to say. But to your surprise he doesn’t ask them. He just nods seriously. 

“I’m gonna make some breakfast. Do you want anything special?”

“Soup?” you venture to request.

“Soup it is,” he says, nodding. "Got any allergies?”

You shake your head and he nods, stands, and then hesitates. “Do you want me to call anyone? Any family or—or friends?”

“No,” you say, and the fear that he might, that he’ll report you to the authorities has you swallowing roughly, hunching against it. That would mean an altogether different kind of trouble. 

“Ok,” he says evenly, eyes softening. And then, “If anyone comes looking for you, I’ll tell them to jog off, yeah?”

He doesn’t wait for your reply, just strides away, and you’re left there with the sounds and smells of cooking wafting toward you and a deep, near-overwhelming surge of gratitude flooding through you. 

. 

. 

. 

He eats at the coffee table across from you with a breakfast of eggs, sausages and toast to your bowl of soup. It's clam chowder, and you hiccup on a strangled laugh when he hands it to you, shake your head at his quirked brow and accept it with a weak smile. 

You eat in silence, but it's companionable. Chris stares out the window facing the surf, as he makes his way through his food, and you sip your soup, reminded suddenly, painfully, of the day your first saw him. The circumstances couldn't be more different, but there's something about the quiet, his aura of steadiness, that is reminiscent of it. 

When you're finished, you hand him your bowl and he takes it and his things to the kitchen. You hear the clatter of the dishes, the rush of the tap, and then, "Want any tea or coffee?" 

"No, thanks." 

"'K," he says, and a couple of minutes later returns with a steaming mug of coffee in his hands. 

"Mind if I sit here?" he asks, nodding at the space beside you on the couch. 

You blink up at him. “It’s—it’s your couch."

He cocks his head, the corner of his mouth twisting, and you can't help but feel you've answered wrong, can't help but shrink away from him. 

"Yeah," he says, "I know. Doesn't matter. Do you mind?" 

You shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak, and he sits, maintains careful distance between you that bothers you, stupidly, as kind a gesture as it is. But you follow his lead, keep your distance, even if suddenly all you wanna do is shove your feet under his legs, curl into him, have his arms around you. 

He sits, scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled, sighs. "You don't have to answer my questions," he starts, looking steadily at you. "I promise, no matter what you say, or don't say, you can stay here as long as you need to. I'll help you however you need, no matter what. And if all you need from me is to sit here until your feet are healed up then that's ok too. Yeah?" 

Heart in your throat, you nod. 

“So,” says Chris, “What kind of trouble are you in?”

You’re tempted to blabber out the whole truth, but you know it won’t go over well. As much as you instinctively trust him, telling him what you are, and all the details of what happened, is just too big a risk, not to mention would make you sound insane—after all, you have no way of proving that you’re not human. So you give him the edited version of the truth. 

“I’m not…from here,” you begin, “Not really. I just. Visit a lot. When I can.” He nods, listening attentively, and you take a breath to steady yourself, go on. “I was—the day we—when you talked to me? There was a man. He—“ You falter, your voice already straining. It’s been months since you’ve spoken, let alone this much, after all. 

Chris visibly hesitates, and then reaches out to place his hand over yours. You turn your palm over, thread your fingers through his, squeeze tightly. Gathering strength and clearing your throat, you forge on. 

“He took something from me that’s…really important. I can’t leave without it, but he—he hid it from me.” Your lip trembles, but you don’t let yourself cry, just like you haven’t ever since that terrible day. “Yesterday he—lost it, I think. Or someone took it from him. So I left. Just. Snuck out and ran.”

“Why’d you come to _me?”_ Chris asks softly. 

You shrug, duck your head. “Don’t have anywhere else to go,” you reply quietly, chest constricting at the admission of vulnerability. You can trust him, you _can._ You’re just…hurt, still. Scared, still. “You said you’d help me, if you could. And I believe you.”

Chris makes a half-smothered, wounded sound, lifts your intwined hands, presses his mouth to your knuckles. “I’m glad,” he says fiercely, “I’m glad.”

Your eyes burn, so you close them, sink deeper into the couch. “‘M tired,” you say, “Can I sleep now?”

“Yeah,” Chris says, “'Course you can.”

The last thing you’re aware of, before sleep claims you, is of a pillow being tucked under your head, of a gentle touch at your brow, moving your hair out of your face. 


	5. Chapter 5

You wake hours later feeling simultaneously better than you have ages and also incredibly stiff, for all that there are about six pillows propping you up.

You gingerly sit up and flex your toes, feet still on the ottoman but covered by another blanket Chris must have draped over you while you were sleeping. Your feet don’t hurt so much as feel _sore_. You wriggle your way free of the blankets and inspect your soles, pleased to find them healed if tender-pink, and then stand to stretch luxuriously with a loud, unselfconscious groan.

Which is of course when Chris walks in on you, laden with shopping. 

“Oh hey!” he says, and then squints at your feet. “You shouldn’t be standing yet.” 

“I’m all better,” you say and show him, balancing unsteadily on one foot to lift the other. He draws nearer, eyes going wide, grasps your ankle with his free hand. It’s a weird position, and he seems to realize it, releasing you with a flush beneath the scruff of his beard. 

“Sorry,” he says gruffly, “Just—you healed up quick.”

You blink at him. “Did I?”

“I’m glad,” he says, and then hefts the bags he's carrying. “I got you some things?”

He did indeed—warm sweatpants, a big t-shirt, an open fronted, soft sweater, a pair of fuzzy socks, a multi-pack of underwear, and a toothbrush. “We can get more, or different stuff, or return it if—“ he begins shyly, but you shake your head, gathering your things to your chest. 

“No, I—thank you,” you say, and he ducks his head, smiles that specific smile that makes his eyes crinkle. 

“Ok. Uh, if you want a bath or shower or anything, washroom’s just through there. Feel free to use—whatever. I got a brush too, if you want it.”

You touch your hair, salt-stiff and knotted, and nod, thankful but—at the moment—unable to fully express it. He seems to understand anyway, nudges you on when you just stand there, holding your things. 

His bathroom is neat and clean and bright, with a couple of pictures of seascapes framed in cheerful turquoise, and a twisted bit of driftwood on display on a shelf behind the toilet, along with a sand dollar. On the ledge of the sink is toothbrush and comb sharing a holder, an electric razor on a stand, three different hair styling products, which makes you grin, and an old, oval mirror. You avoid your reflection, look instead out the frosted glass window in the shower side wall that lets in the midday sun, top pane tilted open to let in the sounds and smell of the sea, the cheerful calls of the birds, the brisk air. There's no shower curtain, just a rectangle of glass on the side of the tub to keep the water from splashing everywhere. 

You strip and shove your clothes, the last traces of _him, _into the garbage bin next to the toilet and turn the water on hot, stepping in. You let out a long sigh as the water sprays down on you, and spend the next thirty minutes detangling your hair and shampooing and conditioning with Chris’ things, which fog up the bathroom with his scent. It makes something settle in you, makes you feel lighter and less brittle, even as you half expect him to knock on the door, hurry you up.

He never does, and you step out when you decide you’ve had enough, feeling new, fingers and toes pruned. Which is when you realize you have no towel. A quick check of the cupboard under the sink reveals bathroom cleaning supplies and stacked toilet paper, but nothing else. 

_Fuck. _

Unaccountably anxious, you look at the clothes Chris bought you. You _could_ put them on, but you’d soak them, and you’re tired of damp clothing. Taking a fortifying breath, you open the door a crack, pretend your voice doesn’t shake when you call his name.

He pokes his head out from around the corner, concern creasing his face. 

“Um, do you have—could I have a towel?”

“Oh shit,” he says, grimacing. “I forgot. Yeah, of course, hang on a minute.”

So saying he comes down the hallway, and you can’t help but cringe back, slam the door. You feel horrible and stupid the second you do, wrapping your arms around your belly and sitting on the covered toilet. You sternly remind yourself that Chris is nothing like your captor, has not hurt you, _will not_ hurt you. Moments later a timid knock sounds on the door. 

“Hey,” says Chris, “Towels're on the floor. I’ll be out back when you're done. Take your time, ok?”

Then his footsteps lead away, soft for such a large man. You open the door just wide enough to snatch up the towels and shut the door, embarrassed by his care, but pleased by it too. Once dry and dressed, you emerge from the bathroom. The house is quiet around you, empty. You pad down the hallway, towards the living room and the back door where he found you last night. 

Chris is outside, facing away from you, bent over his surfboard, on some sort of platform, scraping at it in slow, sure movements that make the muscles of his shoulders and back flex, even under the black pullover he’s wearing. He glances ‘round as you approach, flashes you a quick smile.

“How’re you feeling?” 

“Good,” you reply, “Thought I’d join you.” You heft your borrowed brush as explanation and he nods. 

“Take a chair off the deck, if you want,” he says, turns back to his board. “I’m just taking care of this.”

“Oh?” you say, once you’ve dragged a folding chair from the front deck to where he is and sat where you can see him, half in the shade of a tree.

“Shoulda done this a couple days ago,” he says, and you can see that he’s stripping the board of wax, is more than half done. “After I’ve removed the wax, I’ll wipe it down and then add a couple new coats.”

You watch him as you detangle your hair (again) with your fingers—you did it in the shower, but drying it got it a little tangled again—and then brushing it before braiding it so that it’s out of your face. It’s gotten longer than you’ve ever kept it before—_he_ liked your hair long, liked your hair loose. The memory makes you frown, as you stare at the ends of your braid. And then, with a thrill, it occurs to you that you don’t need to keep it like this, if you don’t want to. And you don’t want to.

“Chris?” 

He hums, rubbing the new wax into the board in small circles, a little divot of concentration between his expressive brows.

“Would you cut my hair for me?”

He glances up then, stilling in his movements. “Yeah?” he asks seriously, and you nod. 

“What if I mess it up?” 

You shrug. “Don’t care. Don’t like it like this.”

“...Ok. Soon as I’m done.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

.

.

.

He cuts your hair in the living room, with you seated on the ottoman and him behind you on the couch, a giant, cut open garbage bag under you to catch all the hair. You’re very aware of his warmth and breadth behind you, his thickly muscled thighs bracketing you in. It’s only a little nerve-wracking—mostly it’s…thrilling. It’s been so long since you’ve been thrilled or excited about anything that it’s easy, at first, to confuse it with fear. 

But you _are_ excited. You’re choosing something for yourself, something small and innocuous that you weren’t allowed, before. _Free_, you think again, and tilt your head obligingly as Chris's long, dextrous fingers part your braid, shake your hair loose around your shoulders.

“How short?” Chris asks you, voice near and intimate. 

You think for a minute, fingering a strand, before you glance at him over your shoulder. “All of it,” you say decisively. 

Chris, to his credit, doesn’t ask you if you’re sure, just studies your expression before he nods. “If you hate it, I’ll take you to a real hairdresser,” he says lightly, but you hear the promise in his words and smile, settle more easily between his legs, boldly prop your arms on his legs like they're arm-rests. His flexes at your touch, gathers your hair in his grasp.

“Don’t worry,” you tell him, as he picks up the scissors. “I trust you.”

The first _snip_ is electric, and then as he cuts, a weight falls both from your head and from your shoulders with every pass of the scissors. Neither of you talk. Chris will occasionally tilt your head forwards or back or to either side with a gentle press of his hands, or brush strands of hair from your shoulder, the nape of your neck. Every touch is soothing, a caress even if it isn’t meant to be. You wish, suddenly, intensely, that this was the first time a human had touched you, but you’re glad for it to be Chris right now.

When he’s done with the back and sides, he asks you to turn around, so he can even up the front. You do, shifting on the ottoman, and he leans forward, cradling the side of your face with his massive hand, thumb against your cheekbone, gaze heavy and assessing. Your hands itch to be placed on his thighs, and you curl them to keep yourself under control. Your eyes falls from his to his mouth, slightly parted. He has a nice mouth, you think absently. If you leaned forward just a little bit more…

But then he lifts the scissors again and you remind yourself of all the reasons why kissing him right now would be a bad idea. He makes a few cuts here and there, draws back to study his efforts, trims a bit more, and then brushes gently at your forehead, the bridge of your nose, the apples of your cheeks with the tips of his fingers. 

“All done,” he says quietly, his fingers trailing to the corner of your mouth. “You have…” he trails off, swipes his thumb over the swell and dip of your lips and, startled, you gasp in a breath. He freezes, eyes dark and electric at once, so _so_ blue and locked on yours. 

Slowly, as though not to alarm you, he withdraws his touch, even as you sway forward to follow it. 

“I’ll—get the mirror,” he says quickly, and scrambles away, leaving you feeling both bemused and deprived.

He returns with the mirror and a bright, pasted on smile that doesn’t quite smooth away the close, heady atmosphere of before, but you let it pass anyway, examine your reflection. He’s done a good job, even if it is a bit choppy. He watches you anxiously as you study his handiwork, touch the back of your head, where it’s so _light. _

“I love it,” you say, a wide smile unfurling across your face. 

He blinks down at you, looking a little like he’s been clubbed over the head, a flush rising to his face, over the bridge of his nose.

“Oh I—good. I mean, I’m glad,” he says, scrubbing at his face like he can scrub the blush away.

.

.

.

That day you follow him around the house, as he tidies and shows you where things are in the kitchen, gives you a quick tour of his home. He brushes past his bedroom with just a quick wave at the space, and you cycle back to the living room, where he lets you inspect his bookshelves and pick up the knick-knacks among the books. He has an eclectic mix of surfer magazines, wildlife and nature books, travel guides and all kinds of fiction, mixed in with a couple of surfing trophies.

“You’re a big reader,” you say, a little surprised. He doesn’t look the type, but then that’s a dumb assumption to have, you suppose.

He shrugs. “Yeah, guess I am,” he says casually. “Usually when I’m out on the boat. It’s nice. Peaceful."

“And you’ve travelled a lot.” There are little mementos of places you’ve never seen but read about or seen on TV, and it fills you with a complicated yearning, to see what he’s seen, go where he’s gone. You’ve never gone far from your pod though, and your pod doesn’t go farther than to and back from your grandmother’s ancestral lands. You wonder with a pang what they must be thinking. You wonder how you could let them know you’re alright, or as alright as you can be without your skin. How would you even find them?

“Years ago,” Chris says, answering your question and breaking through your thoughts. “When I was dumber and wilder. No place like home though.”

“No,” you say, setting down a small, painted stone. “No, there isn’t.”

The air is full of unspoken things, and you’re loath to make the words necessary to bare them. You retreat to the couch, wrap your arms around your now favourite pillow, the fuzzy black and white one. After a bit, Chris settles beside you.

“It’s gonna be ok,” he says, taking your hand in his.

You’re not sure it will be. Wordlessly you shuffle over to him and without a moment’s hesitation he lifts his arm and wraps it around your back as you lay your head on his shoulder, still clutching the pillow. You sit like that, together, as the sun stretches long, golden fingers into the house, caressing your face, warm despite it being the dead of winter. You shift, glance up at Chris, who is staring out at the sea, and lift your hand to the sharp cut of his jaw.

He blinks, looks down at you.

You don’t say anything, just touch the lines of his face slowly, carefully, trailing your fingers through his hair, down to the nape of his neck. He goes boneless against you, pupils blowing. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he murmurs gently.

“Yes,” you whisper, and lean forwards and upwards to brush your mouth over his. Kissing him is sweet and slow, the sway of the tide and the play of sunlight on the water, his hands warm and slowly moving to curl around your waist, to settle without any expectation on your thigh, grounding and solid. Kissing him is exploratory and gentle and so _good,_ and it goes on and on, languid and easy, until you stop, until you pull away and tilt your forehead against his and just…breathe, hands twisted in the material of the pullover he’s still wearing. 

And maybe you’ll never find your skin, maybe you'll never find your pod, maybe you will always be trapped here on land in this form, but this is…this is good. This is safe. And you’ll take it over what was before_. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 4.49am and ive been writing since 3:45pm, pleeeaaaase tell me someone is reading this lmao


	6. Chapter 6

You can’t live like this longterm, you know, even if Chris seems content with having you around indefinitely. Your former captor is out there, looking for you or your skin, and probably both. Your skin is still _lost_. You haven’t felt anymore hands upon it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes, late at night when you can’t sleep, you wonder if it’s been destroyed. You’d feel it, you think. All the stories say you would, and if you can feel when it’s being touched, surely you’d feel it being torn or burned or—but you wonder anyway, stomach twisting, heart sinking.

But for the most part, you're happy. You putter around Chris’s house, reading his books and eating his food and welcoming him home from work (during the winter he’s a sports instructor at the community centre). In return you tell him of the funny things you’ve seen while people watching in the past, your favourite passages in his books, all the videos you’ve watched while he was gone, and kiss him.

You kiss each other a _lot_, quick pecks and sweet kisses and long, indulgent kisses, kisses that lead to cuddling or kisses that lead to you panting in his lap, his face flushed and your body throbbing. You haven’t gone farther—Chris is not like _him,_ doesn’t remind you of _him_ at all, but your body sometimes flinches, sometimes curls away, sometimes reacts.

Chris is…easy about it. Not patient, as though he’s waiting for you to get over yourself, but as if he’s accepting of however far you're willing to go, even when his gaze becomes dark and heavy-lidded, even when he's hard and surging against you like the tide, his hands mapping the length and shape of you in a way that has you gasping, toes curling, moans spilling from your mouth like pearls. 

He’s careful, without making you feel bad about it. You are grateful, even if it means you leave each other heated, even when he grinningly tells you he need to go for a quick dip in the freezing water and actually _does_ it, returning dripping and shaking his hair like a dog, splattering you with droplets of ice as you shriek and laugh and berate him and towel him dry. 

You’ve settled into his life so easily it feels like a dream sometimes, a dream where Chris tells you tales of his students or his coworkers, of his past backpacking his way around the world, the things he’s seen or done and mishaps he's had while sailing. He has an endless amount of stories and an enthusiastic, lively way of sharing them, hands gesticulating wildly and face expressive, and he makes you laugh easily and long and hard, and he laughs along with you, unselfconscious and delighted and generally cheerful. 

Your bleak expectation of your captor finding you immediately, like a hunter on the trail of blood, diminishes day by day. Enough that, when Chris asks you, cautiously excited about it, if you’d like to go on a sailing day trip with him, you say yes with hardly any hesitation.

It’ll be just you and him, and you can push of from the jetty it turns out he built by hand off his private beach, and honestly? You are sick of being cooped up, even if this time it’s by choice more than force. It’s about a week after you collapsed at Chris's door—a short amount of time, given how long you were trapped with _him,_ but you feel like a whole new person.

Not who you were, exactly, before all of this happened, but almost yourself again. 

“I’m so _excited_,” you whoop, bounding out of the house and down the steps ahead of Chris, who follows you more sedately with a bag of food and drinks. 

It’s a nice day—the sun is out, the sky is blue, even if it is freezing. You’re bundled up in one of Chris's thermal shirts and the sweater he bought you, a soft scarf he wound around you before kissing the tip of your nose and shoving a hat so low over your head he’d blinded you. You’d shoved it back with a faux scowl, and he’d stuck his tongue out you, like a child, making you grin. 

You haven’t been out in so long, haven’t had _fun_ in so long! Before your skin was stolen, you took yourself out, or played with your pod, or swam for the joy of it, or hunted for food. And after…well, you’re not going to ruin your day by thinking about it any longer.

You’ve never been on a boat before, and for a while the lurching of the deck leaves you feeling nauseous, before you get distracted by being out at sea again. The sea air whips through your shorn hair, chapping your cheeks and flooding your chest with almost palpable happiness. 

It’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced before—being above the water line like this, on a _vessel._ Sure, sometimes you and a few members of your pod would chill on a buoy or beach yourselves on a dock or rock outcropping, but this is—this is _vastly_ different.

(You had a cousin who liked to tell everyone he’d been caught up in a net and escaped from the deck of a ship while the humans had watched, agog, but you’re sceptical of the truth of it. Your cousin liked tall tales).

It’s strange to be on the sea and not _in_ it. It’s strange to feel steady and unsteady all at once, to be reliant on someone else so entirely. It’s strange to feel estranged from your home. You’re not afraid exactly. You _could_ swim, you’ve done it before in this form, but never where it was _deep_. These limbs tire so easily_,_ chill so quickly. 

But Chris handles his boat with ease and confidence, as though it’s an extension of himself, and your nerves eventually dissipate. Chris is reliable, in this as in everything else. 

He watches you wobble your way around the boat, explaining about masts and rudders and the sails and the lines and all sorts of things you’re not sure you can keep straight in your head, and seems bemused when you return again and again to hang off the deck and stare into the water, arms dangling, the salt spray splashing into your face, wetting your burrowed scarf.

“You’re making me nervous sweetheart,” he says, as you dangle more than half your body out into air, feet from the water, clutching at rope to keep yourself from falling.

“I’ll be ok,” you call, over the splash of the waves, the rumble of the engine. 

“Big swimmer?” he asks.

You laugh. “Yeah,” you say, craning your head around to grin at him. “You could say that."

“But not a surfer?” he teases, recalling all the days you’d watch him surf or teach surfing.

“Not yet,” you reply, waggling your eyebrows, and he laughs, head thrown back.

Chris drops anchor eventually, when you're almost out of sight of land, and you eat a quick lunch with your legs dangling, his body a line of warmth against you from calf to thigh. Chris _radiates_ heat, like a human shaped volcanic vent. You lean into it gratefully—there’s not much wind, the sea calm as it ever gets, but it’s still cold. You miss your blubber.

You miss home. You miss your pod. You miss your _skin. _

Your face must be doing something, because Chris puts down the last bite of his sandwich, nudges you gently. “What’s up?”

But you shake your head, can’t answer him, busy yourself with your food. What can you say? How could you explain? How could you make him believe you? And suddenly you are so so tired of being—incomplete. Torn. You want to be _whole_ again. You want to be _happy_, you want to stop being haunted by everything you’ve lost.

As though summoned by your desperate longing, that’s when you see a group of dark shapes in the water, and your heart leaps and clenches painfully. You drop your sandwich from nerveless fingers, lean forward, heedless of the danger until Chris tugs you close, anchors you. The dark shapes draw nearer, resolve themselves, bob out of the water, and you gasp.

“They’re the local pod of seals,” Chris explains, waving at them.

But you hardly hear him, because you already know that. You _know_ them.

And they know _you_.

They swim closer, ducking and weaving, their chirruping barks and calls filling the air, fins slapping the water, and tears spring to your eyes. You recognize every single one of them, understand them, and without thinking about it you bark back in your paltry, limited, human approximation of your language, trying to tell them you’re trapped, you’re lost, you miss them, you _miss them. _

You’re tipping too far forward and Chris is holding you tighter and tighter and you’re only half-aware of it, everything in you aching to go to them, to go into the water. 

“Hey,” Chris says, anxiety tightening his voice, “Hey, hey, _sweetheart_. Sweetheart, be careful.”

You’re crying. You don’t even realize it until the sight of your family blurs into nothing but indistinct colours. 

_Come home, come home, what’s happened, is he the one who took your skin, come back, come home_ they call to you, and you try to tell them, try to explain, but your tongue is wrong, your tone is wrong, your voice is all _wrong. _

Sobbing, all you can manage is sharp, high, pained _I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. _

They circle at your feet, sliding over and around each other, distressed and concerned and confused, but they can’t stay, it’s not safe, and eventually they dive, eventually they leave, eventually they’re gone, and you are left behind, alone and hysterical. 

Chris drags you from the edge before you can throw yourself overboard and after them, even as you wail and kick at him to let you go, let you go _home_. He doesn’t say anything, catches your fists and pulls you against his chest and just…holds you, as your desperations seeps out of you with the increasing force of your tears, knees buckling beneath you. 

You cry so hard it hurts, cry until your throat is raw, cry until the front of Chris’s shirt is drenched, cry until you can’t anymore, and all the while he holds you, smooths a large warm palm over your head, cradles you and murmurs nonsense words at you.

And then you go numb. 

You’re aware of him sitting you down, wrapping a blanket around you, giving you tea to sip at that you don’t taste or remember finishing as he weighs anchor and turns you toward home. You're aware of stumbling off the boat and onto the creaking dock, tripping onto the sand and Chris catching you before you can fall. He guides you up the stairs and into the house. 

You can't bring yourself to move, and Chris just...helps. He unwinds the scarf and pulls your hat and sweater off, like you’re a child. Kneels down and frees you of the shoes you chose online and he went and picked up for you.

“Come on,” he says, and leads you to his bedroom. You’ve been sleeping on his couch, even though he’d offered you the bed, because you were smaller than him and could fit comfortably and there was something about being in a man’s bedroom you hadn’t been ready for yet.

You don’t care now. You don’t care about much of anything. The void you thought had been shrinking has taken you over. You are hollow, through and through. You have been pretending, all this time, to be alright. You know the truth now. You aren’t alright, and you never will be. 

Not like this.

Not even with Chris.

You crawl into his bed, let him curl up across from you and hold your hands in both of his, and close your eyes, and drift away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im realizing exactly how self indulgent this fic is lololol but whatever im having fun even with all the suffering!!!! it'll pay off!!!! (probably only two more chapters left!!!)


	7. Chapter 7

You wake to Chris nudging his face against yours to press a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll be right back,” he murmurs in your ear, and then the bed shifts and he leaves, but not before adjusting the blankets over and around you. You doze, not asleep but not awake, feeling heavy, heavy, heavy, as time slips and winds away. You’re drawn out of it by a fleeting touch to your skin and whimper, curling deeper into the mattress. It’s cruel, to be so haunted.

Minutes pass, and then a firmer touch grasps your skin and even as you breathe through it, it _stays._ You jerk upright, blinking into the muted darkness of Chris's bedroom, and hear the front door open and then shut, and still, still the touch remains. Chris footsteps sound out, approaching you, and your heart pounds in your chest with every footfall, and still, still your skin is held in foreign hands, still, _still__…_

The door of the bedroom opens and Chris hesitates in the doorway, backlit and transformed into nothing but a hulking outline. 

“Hey,” he says, stepping in. “I think this might be yours.”

And he crosses to sit beside you, and lays your skin across the spread of your lap, reverential and careful.

“I found it behind the shed where we keep the lifejackets and things,” he says in a rush, as you stare wildly down at you skin. “I knew it was a seal pelt, but seal clubbing is illegal here. It had obviously been hidden but I didn’t want whoever'd had it to come back for it. So I took it. Wasn’t planning on keeping it, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. So I just put it away in my jeep, and then completely forgot about it when you showed up.”

His jeep. His _jeep._ You choke out a laugh, finally venture to touch your skin, afraid it’ll vanish like sea foam only it _doesn't_, and your laugh dissolves into tears streaming down your face as you gather it into your arms and hold it close. “How?” you gasp. _“How?”_

“Yesterday,” Chris explains, mouth soft and downturned, shoulders slumped. “You—talked to them. To the seals. And they talked back—I’ve never seen seals act like that before. And…my Nan always told me stories about the selkies, how the merrow’s skinis sacred, that only evil men steal it. And it just. Clicked. What you said, about that bastard, that he took something from you you couldn’t leave without, how he lost it so you ran. It just. Made sense.”

“Chris,” you hiccup, “_Chris.__”_

You can’t say anything more, overcome and overwrought, but he seems to understand, smiles sadly. “I should’ve—I wish I’d figured it out sooner. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

You shake your head, dash your tears away and set your skin to the side before reaching for him, pulling him close and climbing into his lap. “Don’t be,” you say, as his arms come up around you and embrace you in kind. “Don’t, you don’t understand what you’ve given me. _Chris_. I can go _home.__”_

_._

_._

_._

You take off the clothes Chris gave you in slow, easy movements, pausing with each new item to fold it and lay it on the bed, until you’re naked. You pat the pile affectionately, drape your skin over your shoulders, and step out of the bedroom, down the hall, to the back door. Chris is sitting there on the steps, elbows on his knees, head hanging. You pause a few steps behind him, a pang running through you. 

He glances ‘round at you though, and he’s smiling when he does, even as he avoids looking lower than eye-level at you, which you find endearingly respectful of him. “Hey,” he says, standing. “Ready?”

You nod, jittery and fond and nervous all at once, and reach out to him. He meets you halfway, squeezes your hand, and together you walk to the waterline. 

“What do you do?” Chris asks. 

“I walk in,” you say, the water kissing your toes. 

Chris nods, his fingers spasming around yours before he releases you, shoves both hands into the pockets of his sweats. 

“Chris—” you begin, turning to face him. “I—“

But he shakes his head, cups your jaw with both hands, kisses you wet and warm and deep. You whimper into his mouth, press forward, press closer, until he pulls away, breathing heavily, and takes a step back. Another step.

“What are you waiting for?” he asks, eyes over-bright. “Go on, sweetheart.”

“Chris,” you say again, aching for him, aching to leave him, aching to be gone, a confusing muddle that turns into hurting, hurting, hurting. 

“It’s ok,” he says, the faintest tremble to his voice. He musters up a smile anyway. “It’s ok.” 

Taking a shuddering breath you nod, turn away, to face your home, waiting for you. You step in to the water, stride forward until it’s up to your waist and you can feel the change coming over you, slow and inexorable. You look back just once, and Chris is standing there still, watching for you, alone on the sands. 

“Thank you,” you call, hoping your voice isn’t lost to the crash of the waves. “For everything.”

And then you arch and dive and the water closes over your head. Your skin sweeps over you like a wave and transforms, flows around and over you, and you _change._

The ocean welcomes you as one of its own, and you call back your joy. 

_Home. _

_._

_._

_._

He knows he'll never see her again, and he chastises himself for missing her. This was never her world, and that she had been here at all had been a travesty. He never does find out who it was that stole her skin from her and turned her from a cheerful, shy, curious woman into someone who shied away from sudden touches, someone who’s eyes had gone dull and face thin and hollow with misery and pain. If he ever met whoever had hurt her, trapped her, he’s not sure what he’d do. Something violent. Something he couldn’t come back from, probably. So he goes about his life as it was before she ever showed up on the beach to watch him without an ounce of subtlety, or at his door half-frozen to death in the middle of the night.

He keeps her clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser, and he resists the urge to hold them close, try to catch again the smell of her. Ignores the pang of sadness her toothbrush holds for him, standing beside his in the bathroom. Puts her favourite pillow on his bed, and only feels a little pathetic clutching it close at night and pretending it's her he’s holding. She’s where she belongs. She’s happy. He’s made her happy, made up, a little, for the suffering she’d gone through. 

The winter whiles away, cold and overcast as often as it is sunny. A storm ravages them, a few days after the official start of spring, the last of winter’s hold, and as the sea rages and the wind howls, he hopes she’s alright. It’s stupid. Of course she is. She’s lived in the ocean all her life. The storm rattles his house, downs a tree, sweeps sand in through every crevice, and when it finally dies it ushers in a gentle, budding warmth and skies blazing blue. 

Chris cleans out his house, repairs the roof, moves the tree out of the way of his drive, and thinks about getting a dog. He used to have two, when he was little. Maybe it’s time to get one again. He’s tired of being alone. 

He never does get that dog. He sails, and surfs, and the weather gets warmer, and the spring passes gentle and cheerful and rainy, and the summer arrives in all her glory, golden and bright and easy, and with it come tourists and vacationers, and Chris’s job as a surf instructor starts back up. He teaches, correcting stances and soothing away nerves and sternly reprimanding those who don’t take water safety seriously, and he never looks around to see if she’s among the beach-goers. 

It’s the evening of one of these days, and the sky is all flushed with violet and flame and crimson, a sunset for photographs and paintings. Chris is feeling tired and sun-soaked to his bones and melancholy as he parks his jeep, takes the slow steps up the stairs and inside, dropping the keys with a cheerful rattle on the counter. Something creaks, and he looks up, sees his back door open, swaying. He glances swiftly around, but he hasn’t been robbed. Cautiously, he pads quietly towards the back—and finds her standing there, naked and gleaming and grinning at him, eyes bright, limned in the last of the sun, a veritable goddess, water dripping from the locks of her grown-out hair, dripping tantalizingly down the length and swell of her.

“Hi,” she says, “Did you miss me?”

Her laughter rings out as he barrels forward and sweeps her into his arm, spins her, and kisses her once, twice, three times, lingering with the last until they’re both gasping for air and her legs are tight around his waist, his hands secure under her thighs, her arms draped over his shoulders.

“Yes,” he says, looking up at her, a slow smile unfurling over his face. “Yes, I missed you.”

She laughs again, breathless, and dips down to kiss his forehead, the tip of his nose, his mouth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merrow is the Irish word for mermaid or merman, and their mythology often has Merrows who functions similarly to Selkies. Chris's grandmother is of Irish descent, so I thought it'd be fun to throw that bit of trivia in. 
> 
> Anywho, this story is now complete, and this chapter is a tad shorter but it just happened that way, my dudes. Thanks for reading along this incredibly indulgent reader fic from a first time reader!fic writer, and consider dropping a comment (even if its one single emoji or exclamation mark) and I will love you forever. 
> 
> Also, come see me on my disaster of a tumblr! I'm @disinclinant there as well :D


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